Stuck at Home

Hey, how's everyone doing? I know things are not boding well for me already. I mean, I'm still healthy, but... well.... Saturday was my last day of work before the business shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Thankfully, as far as I know, no one in the company has a confirmed - or even a suspected - case of COVID-19. Instead, this closure is mandated in order to assist with social distancing, and is supposed to last at least two weeks. However, no one knows how long we'll actually have to do this.

You know how, if a child is in timeout but tries to leave it prematurely, the timeout is restarted, so the child's 2 minute timeout ends up taking nearly 10 simply because they wouldn't listen? Yeah. I feel like that's what's going on with the entirety of society. We need those two full weeks of social distancing in order to keep all those with the disease - both known and unknown - fully away from everyone who is still healthy at this point. Every time the government has to yell at people for organizing in groups or still doing frivolous shopping/gathering it's like the child getting sent back into timeout; the timer resets.

The long and short as to why the timer must reset is that it takes up to 2 weeks for the virus to fully incubate and cause symptoms. If, after 2 weeks, you don't have symptoms, then you almost definitely also don't have the coronavirus, and therefore can't spread it to someone else. However, each time more people potentially come in contact with an unknown carrier, the timer has to reset to take their potential contraction of the virus into account.

I found this really simple infographic on Tumblr that helps explain the situation.

So, uh... yeah. The longer it takes for society to just suck it up and stay home/away from people, the longer those of us that are complying will need to stay put. It's frustrating, to say the least.

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(Yes, my Bitmoji is wearing PJs. Why wouldn't I?)

Honestly, I thought I'd be able to handle it better than I have been. Despite arguably being an extrovert, I'm still kind of a homebody, so you'd think it would be easy for me to ignore that things like restaurants, movie theaters, bars, and even my friends' houses exist. Plus, I have a list of things I want and need to do that is so long it probably easily surpasses the two week minimum I'll be home. Heck, this is day three, and I'm still in "aaaah, time to relax and catch up on sleep" mode. So you would think I'd have more than enough to keep me from going stir crazy.

At the same time though, this is only Day 3 and I've already lost track of what day of the week it is at least a half-dozen times.

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by David Lanham

Also, as I noted, I haven't even started to touch that To Do list yet. Case and point, I STILL haven't had a story update this month. I haven't finished my Fluff Week project. I haven't written any new one-shots. I haven't started up the When Love Matters project. I haven't thought of One and the Same. I have just... kinda... lost myself as if I already had cabin fever.

For instance, Sunday - just Day 1 of my mandatory home-stay - I started off the day listening to the recording of a two-and-a-half hour livestream on one of the YouTube channels I follow. Overly Sarcastic Productions had Red do two reading livestreams over the past few days as fundraisers for Feeding America. The first one, on Thursday, had Red reading various Edgar Allan Poe short stories for 2+ hours. The second one - the one I listened to on Sunday - was held Saturday evening, in which Red graced us all with a reading of the most notoriously horrendously written fanfiction known to man: My Immortal by XXXbloodyrists666XXX.

For those uninitiated, this story was written in the early 2000s - I think 2006? - and it is a gothic Harry Potter AU where the main character is obviously a self-insert, Mary Sue original character. Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way - the main character's full name - is a vampire who is in her final year at Hogwarts. She starts dating a gothed up Draco Malfoy, only to instantly get a crush on a newly goth Harry Potter, who now goes by the name Vampire. In fact, all of the sympathetic characters have become both goth/Satanists and members of Slytherin House: Hermione Granger became B'loody Mary Smith, Ron Weasley now goes by the nickname Diabolo[sic], and, if I remember correctly, Neville Longbottom shows up towards the end with the new name of Dracula. The author even includes an author-insert character for her beta reader and best friend Raven. This character is named Willow.

The "Plot" of the story - if you could call it that - is that Voldemort wants Ebony to shoot Vampire or Voldy will kill Draco. Due to Ebony's conflicting feelings within a very forced love triangle - which also includes Vampire and Draco both being bisexual and ex-lovers - she keeps telling Voldemort no, and for whatever reason he just keeps pestering her to do it instead of following through with his threat. Eventually, Professor Trelawney - who is either "Profesor Sinister" or "Profesor Trevolry", depending on the whim of the author at any given point - who is also gothic ("goffik") and therefore has a friendly repertoire with the main characters, tells Ebony she must go back in time in order to seduce a teenage Voldemort. Seems he only became evil because he was heartbroken. While back in the 1980s, Voldemort, who is going by the name Satan instead of Tom Riddle, does start to fall for Ebony.

Further time traveling and false death shenanigans ensue before the author dropped off the face of the Earth. There are 44 chapters total, however the 39th chapter was apparently written by someone who hacked the author's account. This parody chapter mocked nearly every element of the story thus far before claiming the fic "complete." In the chat of Red's read through of My Immortal, a lot of commenters joked that the "hacker" was Raven, finally sick of the author's poor grammar and spelling despite the beta reading. This joke is also a nod to the real-life drama told in the Author's Notes at the start of every chapter.

Usually, the ANs were generic "gothics rock; preps are just jealous haters. Everyone who flames the story is clearly a prep. Goths, you rule and I love you." There was also almost always a hat-tip to Raven to thank her for the beta reading. A little past the halfway mark, however, the two had a falling out. Apparently the author had stolen a poster from Raven because said poster was of the author's favorite singer, and she couldn't resist stealing it. She apologized to Raven via the ANs - a weird spot to air out dirty laundry and ask for forgiveness, but whatever - but apparently Raven didn't accept the apology. This lead to Raven's insert character Willow getting killed off. This rough patch with Raven, and a couple of earlier chapters where Raven was on vacation and couldn't beta read for the author, were the worst-written chapters. So, despite all of them - except the hacked one - being horribly written, it seems the quality WAS somewhat improved by Raven's involvement. "Luckily," a couple of chapters from the end, it seemed the author and Raven made up, because Willow made a silent return and the quality "improved" again. In the meantime though, the drama between the author and Raven continued to play out with the author bouncing between "screw you" and "I'm sorry, please forgive me" in her ANs. She also routinely yo-yo'd between "don't blame me for the poor spelling/grammar, that's all on Raven's beta reading" and "Just kidding, Raven, you're amazing!"

Let me tell you, this story is ATROCIOUS. It is borderline PAINFUL to experience. I had Hubby listen to some of it, mostly so he could experience the glory that was the hacked 39th chapter, and he almost couldn't handle just chapter 38; I had him listen to that first to hear the narrative change and understand the mockery. And yet, I LOVED listening to Red read it. The story was one of those trainwreck So Bad It's Good type of experiences. Plus, Red's mocking voice acting, her stumbling over reading the misspellings of words and poor grammar, and her running commentary of the work was a delight. Please, note, however, if you do brave Red's "audiobook" of this fanfic - or find and read the fic yourself - that it is bad for reasons worse than poor grammar and lack of knowledge of the source material.

There is an obscene amount of profanity, gratuitous and callous use of wrist cutting, romanticized and nonconsequential views of suicide, and nonchalant mentions of pedophilia and rape (always spelled rap). Now, the pedophilia and rape are always portrayed as horrendous acts, and the acts are never actually described, but the terms are thrown around casually as evidence of how "evil" someone is. Also, bisexual males are heavily fetishized with the author interjecting with phrases like "aren't bi guys so sexy?"

This. This is how I started my two-week isolation. It's kinda only gone down hill from there.

Hubby wanted something new to binge on Netflix, and, due to a lot of talk about it lately with our Anime Night friends, he decided it was time for us to FINALLY get into JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

This... this show... it's... well... it's unique. That's for sure. I'm enjoying it, to be fair, but it is so massively over-the-top with everything. The dialog, the character design, the color palette swaps for dramatic scenes, the move sets, the character/villain names - which are almost all nods to Western musicians and bands - and the POSES - probably what the series is most known for. Add in the casting of just about every male voice actor I adore, and how can I not enjoy this grand slice of Cheese?

That said, "bizarre" adventure is an appropriate title, because, HOO BOY, is this show ever bizarre! So, needless to say, Sunday was an overly "weird" day for me.

Also, if all of that wasn't enough for my Sunday, thanks to a message ChibiSunnie sent me, I fell down the Inuyasha nostalgia rabbit hole. I've been routinely listening to the soundtrack ever since. In fact, while writing this blog post, I've been listening to the full 4min version of "Come" by Namie Amuro on nonstop repeat.

I have also gone back to listen to Red's livestream of the Edgar Allan Poe stories, but that was yesterday while making dinner and doing dishes.

The rest of my Monday consisted of Hubby and I sleeping in, us watching more JoJo's, me cleaning for a bit, and managing to still get in my Monday Zumba class, thanks to the instructor getting a free version of the video conferencing program Zoom. So, for as long as we can't meet up for Zumba in person, we can each go through the hour-long class at home. All we need is some floor space, the link to the Zoom session, and a good internet connection. Added bonus? Some of the normal participants who are out of town can still join in now!

Add in all of the other entertainment - OSP's reading livestreams, various other YouTube videos, Netflix, Tumblr, and (hopefully) this blog post - as well as people's ability to work from home, and still stay connected to each other, and I think the internet is the MVP of this social distancing. Way to keep up the hard work, Internet.

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Speaking of MVPs, can we pause for a minute to talk about the true MVPs? The essential workers that still have to brave interacting with others during this time of crisis?

So, thank you, doctors, nurses, various other hospital workers, first responders, grocery store workers, delivery drivers, postal workers, funeral directors/morticians, and any other worker I might have missed - such as clerks in stores like Walmart that are still open because they also sell food, water, and other essentials. I know most of you don't really have a say in the matter, but I still praise you for your continued work in this chaotic time, and your calm demeanor despite how crazy everyone else has become, and how poorly a lot of you have been treated lately.

I don't know how much comfort it is in these trying times, but, from me to you:

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Stay well, and stay sane out there.

Hubby is one of those brave souls. He works at a grocery store, so please send him all of your Positive Thoughts for the mornings where the store gets a delivery truck. The place gets MOBBED! The store opens at 6am, and when I drop Hubby off for that 6am shift there are already easily two-dozen cars in the parking lot, and the store manager has already let most of them inside! It is a MADHOUSE as people rush to grab up the hand sanitizer, soap, cheap meats, bread, paper towels, tissues, and.... you guessed it... toilet paper. What is up with the toilet paper insanity?

Downside is that Hubby has to still go out and deal with the public during everything, which also means he could contract COVID-19 and bring it home to me. So please keep us in your thoughts. I mean, so far so good, but I don't want to rest on my laurels. Also, even if we do stay healthy, that is a LOT of time for him to be standing when he already has bad knees and a bad back. Also add in the particularly terrible treatment from a lot of customers right now.

Plus side is two-fold. One, Hubby is getting a massive amount of hours, plus a hazard pay premium while everything is going down, so I hope that will help with me having to switch to unemployment for at least the next two weeks. Two, as mean as this may sound, his working while I'm forced to not means I have nearly 8hrs every day to be home alone. I can spend that time cleaning, or writing, or watching shows I want to catch up on but he's not really into, or stealing the TV to play video games; something I don't get a chance to do frequently.

That said, you see how well I utilized that alone time on Sunday....


Alternatively, Monday, while I was doing Zumba in the "dining room" that separates our living room from our bedroom, Hubby switched from JoJo's to a different anime he had on his watch list, but I wasn't particularly invested in one way or the other. After my shower, and our dinner together, I asked him if he would be cool watching more of his show instead of going back to JoJo's. That way I could sneak off to attempt SOME writing.

Squirreled away for roughly two hours before crashing for the night, I once more tried tackling that 'Your Voice' prompt for the long-over Fluff Week challenge. I had told you last week that I was writing down all of the options I thought up so I could weed them out of my head. Well, a few days ago I just kind of gave up and started writing, hoping SOMETHING would manifest.

I'm not entirely sure how I'm feeling about what I have thus far, but whatever I have, I have six pages and nearly 3000 words worth. It's definitely fluffier than some of my previous chapters/stories, although that's not really saying much. It's also far more Adrienette than I initially pictured for the story, but I guess I needed all of it to help set up the pay off? I'm still not sure what I'm going to do to switch to the initial LadyNoir side of the Love Square that I want the prompt to really focus on. So..... we'll see where I go with that.

Oddly enough, mostly due to my frantic attempt to keep up with my now flooded Tumblr dashboard, I haven't actually read anything this week, unless you count my listening to My Immortal.


Seems everyone I follow is now home with plenty of time to either add content, or at least reblog it, on Tumblr. Meanwhile, I still had work last week, and while we barely had any customers, a lot of that time was spent trying to clean and sanitize the store. Not much time to go through Tumblr with enough regularity to keep up with the heightened influx of activity. When I got home each night I spent some time bonding with the husband, and then I would kind of mindlessly sift through my Tumblr dash for four hours.

I have added so much to my already overwhelming drafts folder.

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by PRANEAT

Since I spent so much time trying to stay up-to-date with Tumblr, I ran out of reading time. Then, like I said, I've been slacking Sunday and Monday, so no reading then either. I'm hoping to get past the mental block this work shutdown has created and truly start utilizing this newfound free time properly.

It's just so weird to be told I CAN'T go anywhere, instead of opting to stay home of my own accord. It's making me stir crazy out of principle, I think. Age old "you don't want something until you're told you can't have it" problems, I guess.

I'm sure it didn't help that it's finally officially spring and we still had this mess to deal with yesterday:

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Why are we still getting snow!?
It was like 70 the day before!

I'm still awkwardly kind of on-call for work since I'm literally a block away from the store. I'm hoping the blinding sun I've seen all morning means the snow melted on its own. Otherwise I might have to go shovel the front sidewalk at least. The store's owner is trying to figure out how to pay me - or somehow give me some sort of backpay once the store reopens - for any time I might spend checking on and otherwise maintaining the building. There's a lot of roof-leaking problems as well that I might have to peek in on.

So... uh... yeah. This time is weird. It's going to feel weird for a while. While I feel like most of us are hoping these Social Distancing restrictions are only going to last for 14 days, I have a suspicion it might last until the end of April at the earliest. Especially if people continue to not voluntarily isolate themselves.

Boy, do I hope I'm wrong, and we can all get back to some semblance of normalcy by the beginning of April. Regardless of which direction this thing leans, I hope we can all stay sane together, and that I've helped you ease some of that boredom and antsiness.

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